Philip Cowley and Mark Stuart's research on Parliament

Have just recorded a radio interview on Jeremy Corbyn’s voting record. It’s fairly easy to sum up: he’s has always been rebellious. In the first parliament that he entered, in 1983, he was the sixth most rebellious Labour MP. From then on, he was always in the top ten, and between 1997 and 2010 he was the most rebellious. Over those 13 years in government, he defied the whip 428 times. In the last five years, he dropped into second place but only just, one vote behind John McDonnell.

I was asked if he’d rebelled against specific leaders or specific policies. In terms of leaders, that’s Neil Kinnock, John Smith, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband. And over certain issues? I once asked him what issues he would rebel on, and he was very clear that he didn’t rebel willy-nilly, only doing so over issues of war and peace, liberty and social-economic policy. I pointed out that this covered everything the government could possibly do.

Of course, for his admirers, this is evidence of integrity, independence, and ideological purity. His critics, by contrast, will see it as disloyalty, egotism and grandstanding. You pays your money, you takes your choice. It is perhaps worth asking how anyone so happy to defy the whip can expect others to follow it under their leadership – and this was a problem IDS faced after he became Conservative leader in 2001. On the other hand, Neil Kinnock managed to transform from 1970s backbench rebel to a fairly top-down 1980s Labour leader without too much difficulty.

Philip Cowley

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Yesterday’s Observer had a long piece on the 56 SNP MPs. I rarely do this, but it was so poor that I’ve written to the paper to complain about it. On the basis that they’ll probably not publish my letter, and even if they do, they’ll cut it (it’s too long), here it is:

We learnt that there are now lots more Scottish accents at Westminster. Presumably all those Labour and Lib Dem MPs previously representing Scottish constituencies spoke with German accents? SNP MPs apparently have long commutes to and from their constituencies, unlike all of their predecessors who presumably travelled by magic carpet. ‘They eat chips’, because it is a fact that chips were never served in any Westminster canteen until May. They ‘turn up’, because other MPs never ever do that.

You report the claim that because of the new SNP MPs, Westminster now has the highest number of openly gay and lesbian MPs anywhere in the world. But the Westminster parliament already held that record before the election in May. But to know this would have required research, and to report it would have challenged the entire thesis of the article.

You interview Stuart Donaldson, without noting that he is the son of a MSP – a minister in the Scottish government – as well as the grandson of an MP. Imagine interviewing, say, a new Conservative MP elected at the age of 23, who was the son and grandson of politicians. It takes nothing away from his astonishing achievement to note that you might have reported that slightly differently.

There are some really interesting questions about how such a large influx of MPs might change Westminster, how it might change them, even how they might in turn change the SNP. There are interesting questions about how the SNP MPs – who, like almost everyone, thought they would be the balance of power in a hung parliament – achieve change when facing a government with an overall majority. It would have been useful if the article had engaged properly with some of those.

Philip Cowley

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There was a lot of fuss yesterday following Helen Goodman’s claim that she would be supporting Yvette Cooper for Labour leader, because Cooper had children (‘As a working mum, she understands the pressures on modern family life’), which was widely interpreted as a dig at Liz Kendall (who doesn’t have children). Leave aside whether such views are right or not; what do the voters think?

Rosie Campbell, Sarah Childs and I recently looked into this, with an (as yet unpublished) paper on parenthood and politicians in the UK. And basically, children are an electoral advantage – and it would appear that British politicians know that.

We found clear evidence that politicians with children tended to receive higher evaluations than those without. We also found that most MPs who are parents make reference to their children on their websites, so we suspect they are intuitively aware of the advantage that this gives them. But the effects are not uniform. In particular, we found that women politicians without children are punished more for their lack children than male politicians in a similar position. The effect of this is not massive, but it is consistent, and could matter in close electoral races.

Philip Cowley

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Although we talk about polling day, the widespread use of postal voting means that there are now multiple polling days in British general elections. In 2015, postal votes began to be issued around 13 April, as the parties’ manifestos were being published.

As part of the work for The British General Election of 2015, I thought it would be good to know when people actually voted. The fifth wave of the British Election Study has a question specifically asking people if they have a postal vote, and if they have, whether they have used it.

The fifth wave of the BES is a campaign wave, which polls c.600-800 people each day, which allows us to see when people start to say they have used their postal vote. If you just take the % of respondents who say they have voted by post each day during the campaign, you get this graph.

Each data point is a separate poll, which explains why the values can go down as well as up, day-on-day. (Obviously, the cumulative percentage of actual people to have voted by post can only go up, day-on-day).*

The graph shows a clear take off in postal voting from about day 22 of the campaign (that is, 20 April). So postal votes may have started to go out from around 13 April, but by the time they had arrived, and people had prevaricated a bit (left them on the kitchen table, had a ponder, tried to understand the instructions and so on) – it was about nine days later that people started to fill them in and send them back. (And, of course, not all councils will have been quite so organised to get the votes sent out on 13 April). In practice, therefore, most postal voting took place over the last 16 days, or just over two weeks, of the campaign.

The second interesting thing about the graph is all the people who claimed that they had voted by post when it was not simply possible for them to have done so. The percentage saying they had voted by post should be zero for the first 13 days of the campaign, rather than being between 3-6%. It’s a good reminder that some people can fail to recall accurately even the most straight-forward things about their voting.

Philip Cowley

* Technically, this isn’t true: if people were registering to vote at a faster rate than people with postal votes were using them, then the % of people who’d voted by post could decline. The deadline for the former was 20 April, however, around the time people started postal voting in earnest, so we can safely rule it out.

There is a question about whether a party had a ‘real chance’ of being in government or not, ‘either forming a government by itself or as part of a coalition’. The question isn’t brilliantly worded – it rules out other ways in which parties might be involved in government, such as confidence and supply agreements – but for all its flaws, responses to the question are still revealing.

The question asked about parties that had ‘no real chance’ of being in government. The figure for both Labour and Conservative was 3%. Almost everyone could see they had a chance. For the Lib Dems, it was 18%. Most people thought they had a chance.

The figure for the SNP was 23%, only marginally higher than that for the Lib Dems. So most people (71%, with the remainder saying they didn’t know) thought there was a real chance of the SNP being in government after the election. Technically, according to the wording of the question, all 71% are simply wrong. The SNP were never going to be in government as part of a coalition (both they and Labour had ruled that out, and they had ruled out doing any deal with the Conservatives), but there were other ways in which they might have influenced things had there been the hung parliament almost everyone expected, and what this is showing is that people thought the SNP might be involved in government, somehow.

For comparison, the figure for UKIP is 37%, then Plaid (59%) and the Greens (60%).

Labour were desperate during the campaign to rule out any deals with the SNP. It’s pretty clear that this didn’t work.

Voters also understood that if there was a deal involving the SNP it was much more likely to involve Labour than the Conservatives. A different question – again, unfortunately not well-worded – asked about parties that would be willing to join a coalition with either Labour or the Conservatives. Some 89% of voters who had a view thought the SNP would be willing to join with Labour, just 18% said with the Conservatives. Again, technically, all of these voters are wrong – since coalitions with either were not on the table – but the responses do at least show voters understood that the SNP was more likely to engage with Labour than the Conservatives.

% of respondents who say the SNP had no chance of being in government after the election, by day of campaign

If anything, the perception that the SNP might play a role in government increased during the campaign. This graph (above) shows the % of respondents, by day of response, who felt that the SNP had ‘no real chance’ of being in government. (The sample size of the BES is so large that each of these daily sub-samples is c.600-800 respondents). Labour spent the campaign playing down the chance of the SNP being involved, the Tories playing it up. Very slightly – but still clearly – the Tories won that battle.

Philip Cowley

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Perhaps the key defining feature of the general election was that almost nothing happened as we had expected. Even in Scotland, where the result was broadly what had been predicted by the polls (though as Andrew Marr wrote, ‘anybody who stepped off the train at Edinburgh Waverley Station and bought a latte would have picked that up’), the consequences were different. The SNP thought that they were going to hold the balance of power at Westminster. They were going to lock out David Cameron and the Conservatives, and demand constant concessions Ed Miliband. Instead, they’ve found themselves on the wrong side of a small, but workable, Conservative majority. Ahead there are five years of heckling the steamroller.

Of course, they will do all the things that opposition parties can do to try to constrain the government, and they might occasionally score hits. Between 2005 and 2010, the Lib Dem group of MPs was slightly larger than the SNP group is today, and they had their moments – the Ghurkhas being the most obvious one – but it was hardly a record of massive political influence. Even with this smaller majority, to defeat the government you need issues which can unite the SNP and Labour and Tory rebels, and they’ll be harder to find than you think. Yes, they’ll sit on committees, but even where they chair them they will have to work with other parties to achieve anything, and anyway, the government will have a majority there too. They’ll do all the worthy constituency work – which will take up a much larger proportion of their time than they realise. (I suspect some of the ostentatious sitting in the chamber seen so far will soon go out of the window once the postbags start to build up). Like all MPs, some will do that well, some less well but (like all MPs) it’ll take up a lot of their time, and they won’t get much thanks for it. And yes, they’ll get two questions a week at PMQs, but ask Nick Clegg or Ming Campbell how easy it is to make a mark there.

This isn’t to say that the SNP contingent won’t achieve anything, just that, bluntly, they probably won’t achieve much in policy terms. And that is not how they need their time at Westminster to be seen.

This helps explain many of the recent antics – the clapping in the chamber, the row over seats, and so on. True, the SNP don’t want to be seen as wreckers and irresponsible. They want to be taken seriously, with an eye on next year’s Scottish Parliament elections. So it can’t all be about seating and clapping. But seating and clapping is a good start, and an easy way of demonstrating making a difference. There is an obvious risk that it gets presented negatively: a bit petty, childish, trivial. But it is easy enough to present all of these acts rather as ‘shaking up Westminster’, ‘doing politics differently’, ‘challenging the establishment’.

They’re helped in this by the fact that in Scottish political discourse Westminster has ceased to be a geographic location. It is where ‘they’ are, where everything is wrong, broken, and in need of change. And they’re helped by the current status of Scottish politics – where even if Nicola Sturgeon was filmed drowning kittens, there would be people claiming that the kittens were in the employ of MI5, and anyway, drowning kittens was actually a progressive thing to do. Anyone who doubts how this sort of stuff plays to SNP supporters should look at #the56 on Twitter.

There’s also a second benefit to all of this, too easily overlooked. The expansion of the SNP from six Westminster MPs to 56 in one election is the largest sudden growth of any party since the emergence of the Home Rule League in 1874. (They went from zero to 60, as a result of the introduction of the secret ballot). The SNP party managers have taken a group of extremely inexperienced MPs, 50 49 of whom are new to Westminster, and have already inculcated in them a sense of esprit de corps. Even before the Queen’s speech, they had something to do, helping to build up a bit of them-and-us mentality, a bit of no-one-likes-us, we-don’t-care attitude, which will do no harm. It would be easy to get sucked into Westminster, and to achieve only marginally more than nothing. Less than a month into the parliament, they have already made their mark. I described this recently as ‘gestures’, and got complaints that I was being negative. But it wasn’t meant to be negative: gestures can be important.

Philip Cowley

UPDATE: In a piece of top-grade pedantry, John Shand pointed out that ‘only’ 49 of the MPs are new to the Commons – since included in the 50 is the retread Member for Gordon. So have amended.

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Dennis Kavanagh and I are rushing to complete The British General Election of 2015, to be published by Palgrave in October. It’s the latest in a series of books dating back to 1945, the longest-running national election series in the world. Based on the material we have, it’s going to be a cracker!

We’d like to include some pictures of the election as it actually was for those doing the grunt work of the ground campaign: knocking on doors, delivering leaflets, holding street stalls, public meetings and so on. Anyone who has such pictures and would like their work immortalised in the book, please just drop me a line, at philip.cowley@nottingham.ac.uk

Alas, we can’t pay – academic books just don’t have the budget – but in return for any we use, I’ll send a free copy of the book. Plus, your efforts will live on forever in print.

Philip Cowley

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One of the standard bits of advice to young academics is to specialise: find a niche, and make it yours. That way you get known for being the expert in something. Only an idiot publishes like a scattergun, across a range of subjects.

I have obviously not followed this strategy myself during the last few months, in the short campaign and just before, by publishing short articles on:

Around 7% of Americans think that the moon landings were faked; another 13% say they are not sure. That 7% figure is lower than the 13% who think Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ (another 13% aren’t sure about that one).

There is a growing literature in the US examining conspiracy theories and their relationship with partisanship and voting, with (contested) claims that a growing divide is opening up between the parties over their supporters’ propensity to believe in conspiracy theories. What about here in the UK?

I asked You Gov to run a simple question testing whether Britons believe the moon landings occurred or not. I deliberately chose a conspiracy theory that wasn’t focussed on Britain – Tony Blair is actually a lizard in human form or MI5 was involved in fixing the Scottish referendum – to get at a wider sense of belief in conspiracies, rather than anything which might be obviously partisan. The question wording was:

Some people believe that humans first landed on the moon in 1969; other people believe that the landings were faked as part of a conspiracy to protect the pride of the USA. What is your view?

As well as a don’t know option, respondents had four options: ‘Humans definitely landed on the moon in 1969’; ‘Humans probably landed on the moon in 1969, but there is a chance it was faked’; ‘The US probably faked the moon landings in 1969, but there is a chance it happened’; ‘The US definitely faked the moon landings in 1969’. The fieldwork for the poll was 19-20 April, with a total sample of 2078 adults, asked online, and with all findings subject to the company’s standard weighting.

If we take the last two categories together, we get 9% of Brits who think that the moon landings were probably or definitely faked (3% say definitely faked, 6% say probably), along with 14% of don’t knows. This is a very similar figure to the American example, albeit with slightly different question wording.

On the other hand, 55% of Brits think the moon landings definitely happened, along with 22% who think they probably happened but that there is a chance they were faked.

(If you added all the categories who think there is at least a chance the moon landings were faked or who don’t know, you get 45%).

Majorities of respondents of both sexes, both working class (C2DE) and middle class (ABC1), and in all regions/nations of Britain think the moon landings probably or definitely happened. There are some slight differences: women are more likely to say they did not know (as so often in surveys), and more likely to say the landings might have been faked, ditto for working class respondents. But none of these differences is especially large.

The majority of supporters of all four of the largest GB-parties believe that the moon landings happened. (The sample of GB-wide, and therefore does not contain enough respondents to do analysis of Plaid or the SNP, and there are fewer than 100 Green respondents).

If we create a net figure – the percentage who think the landings occurred minus those who think they did not – we find that Conservative and Lib Dem supporters are the most certain (+77), with Labour coming third (+66). Supporters of UKIP scored +59. Some 5% of UKIP supporters think the moon landings were definitely faked, and 9% that they were probably faked, both figures are higher than any other party (indeed, the 14% figure is higher than for any other sub-group in the data – by sex, class, region, or age), along with 13% who say they don’t know (also higher than any other party). Even this difference isn’t especially large, though, and a full 73% of UKIP supporters think the landings either definitely (50%) or probably (23%) happened.

There does not therefore appear to be the partisan difference in conspiracy theories that some studies claim is opening up in the US.

Or maybe I’ve been paid by MI5 to say that?

Philip Cowley

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Perhaps the only thing more exciting than the general election is the battle for promotion out of the Vanarama conference. Like the election, this is going down to the wire. With two games left to go, there is just one point between the top two teams fighting it out for the only automatic promotion place, followed by a chasing pack either in, or just outside, the play off zone.

As it happens, the top five clubs are also an interesting guide to the sort of electoral competition we’ll see on 7 May.

We start with Barnet, currently top of the Conference, by just one point. Barnet’s ground is located in Harrow East, which is a Conservative seat. But it is a Conservative seat taken from Labour at the last election, and where the Conservative MP has a majority of 7%, and is the sort of seat Labour need to take back if they are to win the election. (Underhill stadium, where Barnet played from 1907 to 2013, is in the nearby constituency of Chipping Barnet, which is also a Conservative seat, but much more safe).

Currently second in the Conference is Bristol Rovers. The Memorial Ground is in Bristol West (albeit right on the border with Bristol North West). Bristol West is a Lib Dem-held seat, but as well as being a target for Labour (who held it until 2005) it is also one of the Greens’ key target seats. It therefore looks like being a very interesting three-way contest. Bristol North West, where I suspect more Bristol Rovers fans actually live, is a Conservative-held seat, but as with Harrow East, one that Labour lost in 2010 and which they are challenging to retake this time.

In third place, and only recently out of the race for the top spot, we have Grimsby. Just to confuse us Grimsby Town FC’s ground isn’t in the constituency of Great Grimsby – but is in Cleethorpes. Cleethorpes is yet another seat taken by the Conservatives in 2010, and which Labour are looking to win back. Grimsby itself is even more interesting, because it’s one of the seats where Labour are facing a serious challenge from UKIP. A former safe Labour seat, the latest poll by Lord Ashcroft put UKIP just one point behind Labour.

Eastleigh FC, currently fourth in the conference, also isn’t in the most obvious constituency (Eastleigh), but is in Romsey and Southampton North. This was a marginal seat at the last election, held by the Lib Dems between 2001 and 2010, but now looks like a fairly safe Conservative seat. Eastleigh itself (where, presumably, most Eastleigh fans actually live?) has been held by the Lib Dems since a by-election in 1994. They even held it at a by-election in 2013, despite their poll ratings falling nationally after going into government in 2010. The by-election in 2013 was caused by the resignation of Chris Huhne, en route to prison for perverting the course of justice. The Lib Dems initially gained the seat in 1994 at another by-election, after the Conservative MP died as a result of euto-erotic asphyxiation. You can’t say that of many constituencies.

And in fifth place comes Forest Green Rovers, whose ground is in the constituency of Stroud. This is an ultra-marginal seat, with a Conservative majority of just 1299 votes, another seat lost by Labour in 2010 and which they are hoping to get back. The contest in Stroud is complicated by the fact that the previous Labour MP, David Drew, is fighting the seat again. Drew is a Vice-Chairman of Forest Green Rovers,

Given that more than half of constituencies in Britain are basically safe, and are not going to change hands, this is a much more interesting bunch than a representative sample. Apart from Chipping Barnet (where the odds on the Conservatives winning are 1/200) not one can be considered really safe. The safest of the others is Romsey and Southampton North, but even that changed hands at the last election. Of the others, we have several Con-Lab close fights, of the sort that will determine the election, a three-way marginal involving the Greens, and a seat where UKIP are serious contenders.

And just outside of the top five, we have Macclesfield, still in with a chance of making it into the play offs. This is a safe Tory seat, with the incumbent having a majority of almost 12000 votes. Even safe Macclesfield is interesting, though, as it was a seat where in 2010, the Lib Dems came second, but which has probably now reverted to being a Labour-Conservative fight. There will be a lot of seats like Macclesfield in May.

This isn’t quite every type of contest going – the lack of Scottish or Welsh seats is an obvious omission, as is the lack of a safe Labour seat – but it’s not far off.

For those who like gambling and politics and football and gambling (who doesn’t), there are some options here. If you’re a Labour-supporting Barnet fan, you can get combined odds of 2.6 on Labour to win Harrow East and Barnet to win the Conference. A Conservative-supporting Barnet fan can get odds of 3.0 for both of their ships to come in.

The combined odds are even better for Bristol Rovers fans. The Lib Dems to win Bristol West and Bristol Rovers to top the Conference gives you odds of 4.8. Labour to win Bristol West and Bristol Rovers to win the conference gives you 7.5. If you’re a Green-voting Bristol Rovers fan, there are odds of 10.0 for both to come in for you in Bristol West. If you’re a UKIP-voting Barnet fan there are odds of 76.5 for you in Harrow East – although in this case I’d probably advise you to save your money.